Dragons of a New Age

1 The Storm over Krynn

In Nightlund, far from the land of the Irda, a dense fog clung to a broad swatch of tall rye grass and stretched toward a lush forest canopy high overhead. The fog’s milk-white tendrils writhed about the trunks of the oldest oaks, circling ever tighter.

The fog was thickest against the earth, palpable, practically obscuring the gentle rise and fall of the land. It flowed toward a clearing on the horizon, where it embraced a ring of ancient stones.

The fog never left the ring, which marked the heart of Nightlund. The sun couldn’t chase it away, and the fiercest wind couldn’t drive it away. It was part of the primal, unfailing magic that pulsed through the carved stones and reached beyond Krynn—to other worlds and the dimensions that lay between. The fog shrouded the ring of stones from the curious, keeping it safe for those few who knew how to use it as a portal. And whenever a traveler used the ring, the fog shimmered with energy—just as it shimmered now.

Inside the ring bits of color, gold and blue, sparked, danced, and shimmered, then faded and coalesced again. The blue intensified to a brilliant, glistening hue, growing to fill the interior of the stone circle. The gold sparks expanded to form huge twin orbs that cut through the fog like beacons.

“I am home,” the traveler hissed. “And soon, Kitiara, very soon, I shall bring you home, too.”

The traveler’s thick blue legs tensed and pushed against the ground, propelling him above the ring and the fog, above the forest’s highest canopy and into Nightlund’s cloudless early evening sky.

He swept his enormous wings out to his sides and beat them almost imperceptibly, just enough to keep himself aloft. Then the traveler craned his long, scaly neck, and his cavernous nostrils quivered and sniffed and took in the heady scent of the land below.

The blue dragon was immense, a great ancient wyrm. Each of his scales was as large as a knight’s shield, though they all lay sleek and gleaming against his body, making it seem as if he was made of molten sapphires. His serpentine tail trailed behind him and undulated slowly.

“Ah, Kitiara, to have finally found you!” he cried. “To have touched you after so many years!” He threw back his head and a joyous rumble started deep in his belly. The sound raced up his throat, and he opened wide his gigantic jaws. A bolt of white-hot lightning shot from between his fangs and arced high into the sky, streaking toward Lunitari. “Soon, Kitiara, we shall be together again!”

The dragon beat his wings faster now, whipping the air into a frenzy, forcing away all of the fog except that which eternally clung to the ring. His jaws clacked open and shut rhythmically, and his tail jerked and twitched. He closed his eyes. Seemingly from out of nowhere, clouds gathered and blotted out the pale red moon. The clouds quickly turned dark and thickened, grew heavy with rain.

A bolt of lightning shot from the dragon’s mouth and buried itself deep into the largest cloud. The sky reverberated in response, and a myriad of lightning strokes flashed down to tease the treetops and dance erratically toward the earth.

A bolt struck the dragon’s wings, raced to his shoulder blades, then played along the spiked ridge of his back. It crackled up his neck and along the length of his silver-white horns, and it darted toward the tip of his tail and sparked across his massive haunches. Then another bolt struck him, and another. He relished its tingling touch. He was its master.

The dragon closed his eyes in ecstasy, and his roar was echoed by the storm’s booming thunder. Then the rain began, splashing against the dragon’s hide, against the shrouded, ancient ring of stones far below. He flew higher, until he was just below the clouds, and then unleashed his lightning breath again and again. He was illuminated by the bolts, his rain-shiny scales acting as bits of mirrors that reflected the lightning and made him glow.

He lashed his tail about like a whip. In response, the storm grew fiercer still, and the rain came in torrents, battering the trees and flattening the grass.

The deluge intensified as the dragon swooped to hover above the ring of stones, still hidden by the immutable magical fog, but not from him.

“Hear me!” he cried in a voice that sounded like a keen wind. “Khellendros, the Portal Master... Khellendros, the Storm Over Krynn... has returned! Khellendros, once called Skie by Kitiara, is home!”

The lightning and thunder rocked the ground, the rain hammered against the trees, and the sky grew black as midnight.